It is known that airborne asbestos fibers can cause lung cancer, mesothelioma and other related diseases. For this reason the use of asbestos in building construction and consumer products is no longer permitted. However, there are many older buildings where asbestos is a built-in potential hazard.
Asbestos has been used in a variety of different items, e.g. insulation around pipes and heating ducts, paints, floor tiles, cement, shingles, spackling compounds, fabrics, and road-surfacing coatings. In the past, interior ceilings of school buildings and municipal buildings were often sprayed with asbestos-containing materials for decorative and fireproofing purposes. Over the passage of time asbestos fibers can be released from their entrapped states within (on) building wall surfaces into the air, where they pose a health hazard.
There is a need for a sampling tool that can be used to extract a small sample of material from a building wall (e.g. ceiling, vertical wall or floor) to test for the presence of asbestos fibers.